Memento Mori
by AutumnDynasty
Summary: Remember you are mortal. Remember your death.' There are many possibilities in Wonderland. We've only seen a few. [Three drabbles]


It's been a while since I've written for Alice, and it's the first time I've written properly for it, so I'd be very interested in knowing what people think of this. Yes, you there. ;D

_**Please read this A/N:**_

So. Three drabbles. I decided to try out different genres...ok I lie. I wrote the typical genres I usually do and tried to be a little less...depressing about it. So. First one is a hurt/comfort 'genre', aka angst with a bit of happiness. The hard part was getting the 'happiness' in there. Hope I suceeded even a little with that. Second is an AU, with two ideas in mind: what if Alice died and what if time was no so much a quantity as a 'quality'. The Hatter is hard to write for. Harder than I thought it would be anyway. And finally, the last one is just plain old dark. I wanted to use Shakespeare quotes in there. And the first time I do it? Yes, it's meant to be wrong. Hey, everyone forgets. Even the Cheshire Cat. Sometimes.

Enjoy!

**XoOoX**

Evening in Wonderland. A single candlelight burned in a wide green field. The grass brushing against Alice's hand was starting to itch, her arm propping her up as she read aloud from the book in her other hand.

"The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the…"

A large bundle by Alice's lap shifted slightly as she trailed off. The Cheshire Cat rested his tattooed head on her leg and looked up at her with shining yellow eyes. He didn't need to say anything.

"It sounds familiar," she said. Cheshire continued to grin, but then he never did much else. "Everything seemed so -- broken."

"The Red Queen has been vanquished. The wound has been cauterised. Rule your domain, Alice," the Cat said quietly.

"I shan't be around much longer, Cat. My uncle intends to send me to a school near London soon." Alice watched the Cheshire Cat's still-ragged tail thump lightly on ground in a gesture of feline frustration.

"It's time you grew up conventionally," he said.

"Perhaps you are right, but I don't want to."

"Then refuse to comply to the wishes of others. They are merely moons to your world and though they may control your tides, it is you who controls their orbit and your grounds." Alice gave him a piercing look.

"Why, Cat! You're becoming positively lyrical!" she laughed lightly. The Cheshire Cat waved his tail menacingly. Alice remained unimpressed and he rested it on the ground again.

"It seems your attitude has improved little. Perhaps this school will do you good," he said.

"Don't be so put-out. I apologise," Alice said lightly. The Cheshire Cat growled something under his breath and rested his head down again. Alice smiled. Whatever happened would happen. Wonderland had survived this long, surely it could survive a few more years yet? She would deal with anything when it came.

After all, she thought as she looked down at the Cat that lay sprawled out beside her in the candlelight, I'm just a guest. They have to live here.

Alice blew out the candle beside her and watched in the last light of the day as the smoke spiralled away on the slight breeze. She shut the book and rested it on the grass.

_Great Expectations._

**XoOoX**

The Hatter is mad, plainly and simply. It doesn't occur to him that this could be a possibility, but that only sticks the label more securely to him than fibers that hold together a lady's hat. Madness is not something that the Hatter would like to bother with. It cannot be quantified. It cannot be measured nor clinically recorded. It is human; something which the Hatter no longer wants to bother with.

At six 'o' clock everyday the Hatter takes his tea in the laboratory, watching the Hare and the Dormouse impassively. Looking for imperfections, signs of mutation or abnormal behavior. Anything that's not routine to the fraction of a second. And of course, there is always something different. The Hatter would despair for his failures if he were capable of such a thing anymore.

The Hatter does occasionally sit and think, though. A slight jarring of the clockwork wherein a slight reversal of time in the mind is allowed. There was a girl who once joined them for tea parties and grew quite well versed in riddles.

_I watch and wait and patiently sit. I never began, so I shall never quit. You can't beat me but you always try. The question is: What am I?_

Everything had made so much sense. At first, all that was needed was a pocket watch that was either an hour too fast or an hour too slow and always soaked in tea. Then the visits became less frequent and finally, Alice stopped coming after a fiery torrent scorched the fantastical into the macabre.

One day, Alice returned. But the old pocket watch was broken at last and the Hatter couldn't fix it. He tried instead to improve upon it. To create better and better clockwork that would last. By the time Alice returned, many improvements had been made to the outside, but not to Alice. She was a loose gear in a perfect machination.

One day, Alice stopped.

Time, the Hatter knows now, is something that cannot be measured either. It cannot be quantified and it cannot be clinically recorded. Not in Wonderland where it is something that just is. Time could be slow one day as he fits cogs into a small wooden box with a circular glass front, and yet go so fast the next as he sits staring at rotating metal hands that point to this number and that. That is why the Hatter's clocks spin in seemingly random paths, around and around. The Hatter understands how and where time likes to move. There is a pattern, however complex -- random even, it may appear to others.

Unlike Time, the Hatter didn't understand Alice. Especially not when she began to cough harder and more often, when she would sway on her feet, grew thinner and more tired, or when blood from her own mouth dotted that already bloody apron. He still wasn't sure he understood why her body no longer moved. The Cat had once appeared above a large Grandfather clock by the door and told him that there was nothing to be done for her in the Asylum and especially not in her dreamland. The ending would be coming soon, perhaps.

But the ending has not come and the Hatter doesn't bother to question it. He couldn't understand what the Cat had meant that day anyway and he does not bother to wonder where the loose gear has gone either. There is no end to Time, after all.

**XoOoX**

The pitchfork slammed into the rock. The Cheshire Cat leapt to the side as it swung past. He growled at the imp and lunged. But the imp recovered quickly and again swung its weapon towards the cat. Too late, the Cheshire pulled back and black metal seared across one leg and past an ear, tearing it. That was a damaging blow. So careless. The Cheshire Cat hissed, grinned and fled.

_When the battle's lost and won, make thick my blood…Something like that._

The cat ducked behind a timber mine support once he was free from pursuit. He'd run quite a way. He cursed his carelessness again and began to lick the slash on his arm. He studied it critically. The flesh was ragged and red, with matted grey fur beginning to get stuck to the blood. Imps had such charming manners. The Cheshire Cat's grin widened. That particular imp had been sneaky; the cat had been distracted and not had time to vanish, trying to figure out where Alice would appear when she finally came to save them all. It wouldn't be long now, however perilous it would be. It could go either way. They could be saved or lose the last hope they had left. It all depended on the outcome of one moody teenager's personality crisis.

He winced as his ear prickled in pain. There was probably a bit missing and his front leg would carry a scar. Soon it wouldn't matter. It couldn't matter. The Cheshire Cat could grin as the world rotted around him, but there was very little left to grin about now. They needed a miracle. They needed Alice, but perhaps that wouldn't be enough. She had to carve a bloody and miserable path through her own mind after all. The Cheshire Cat didn't envy her in the slightest.

A female scream echoed down through a roof shaft and the cat's grin grew impossibly wide, like a polished and sharpened scimitar.

"Something wicked this way comes?"

Yes, that was right.

**XoOoX**

This is dedicated to RobinRocks. Maybe I should have put this at the start? She wanted me to write something she'd understand, so I chose Alice. Come on, you know Alice, right? ;p


End file.
